When a partially automated, semi-automated or fully automated vehicle drives on a road comprising more than one lane going in the same direction, a lane change is sometimes desirable, e.g., when there is a slow-driving preceding vehicle ahead or when there is a faster vehicle approaching from behind. A lane change may also be desirable when the own lane ends. In order to perform the lane change maneuver, an inter-vehicle traffic gap may have to be selected in a target lane as well as a time instance to perform the lane change maneuver.
Advanced driver assistance systems, abbreviated as ADAS, e.g., adaptive cruise control, abbreviated as ACC, lane keeping aid, abbreviated as LKA, and traffic jam assist, abbreviated as TJA, are becoming more and more common as the development towards autonomous or automated vehicles progress. To further increase the autonomous capability of ADAS and eventually progress to fully automated or autonomous driving on e.g., highways, the ability of an ego (i.e., host) vehicle to perform lane change maneuvers is desirable.
There are various research projects ongoing regarding trajectory planning for lane change maneuvers. Many of the proposed approaches consider the lane change trajectory planning problem mainly as a lateral planning problem. It is often assumed that given a sufficiently large inter-vehicle traffic gap, the ego vehicle can perform a lateral movement into the target lane.
However, it may also be desirable to consider the longitudinal planning. There is thus a desire for an improved method and system for evaluating inter-vehicle traffic gaps and time instances to perform a lane change maneuver.